Tailoring training can improve effectiveness and efficiency. However, before informed decisions regarding tailoring Army institutional training can be mad3e, instruments which predict performance must be available. To that end, instructors from the Infantry Advanced Leaders Course at Fort Benning, GA were interviewed to determine which course criteria exhibited large variation in student performance. Based on those interviews, two criteria were chose: land navigation and troop leading procedures. Four types of predictors were constructed for each criterion. The first type was predictive judgments of Soldier criterion performance. The second type was demographic items. The third type was self-report items concerning specific, criterion-relevant experiences. The fourth type was prior knowledge tests. For each criterion, prior knowledge alone significantly predicted performance. The different nature of the criteria has implications for both the construction of prior knowledge tests and how prior knowledge tests can be used to predict performance. Ways in which these results can be translated into user-friendly tools for course managers, instructors, and other relevant personnel are illustrated.

Cover title. "November 2011." Author(s) subject terms: Prior Knowledge, Tailoring Training, Performance Prediction, Land Navigation, Troop Leading Procedures, Infantry ALC. "Army project number 633007A792."